Decay Inevitable

The man with the knife stopped in front of Elisabeth. “This your wife?” he asked, taking an age to look her up and down. He leaned over to give her a side-on appraisal too.

“Yes, she’s my wife. We’re lost. My daughter... our daughter was playing. She ran off. We’ve called the police.”

A bowing of the lips, a tiny shake of the head. The slow blink. “I don’t think you called the police. I don’t think you have a phone. I don’t think you know where you are.”

“We’re in the Midlands,” Elisabeth said. She was darting looks around her. Will could feel her bristling beside him. She would take off in a minute, he could tell. He would be right behind her.

“Ah,” intoned the man in the fleece, “the Midlands. ‘Hello, police? Yes, we’ve lost our little daughter. Come and help us find her please. She’s in the Midlands. Somewhere.’”

More laughter from the gang. It was uneasy laughter now though, forced as they considered, like Will and Elisabeth, what would come next. What would be their signal? Will hoped that he and Elisabeth might be away before they found out.

The man with the knife reached out and pushed his fingers through Elisabeth’s hair.

“Don’t touch her,” Will said, in what he hoped was a hard voice. He was no midget and the lack of a shave, he knew, lent his face an aggression that did not exist.

“You’d rather I touched you?” said the man with the knife, failing to take his eyes off Elisabeth. His hand lowered, fastened on her left breast. Elisabeth winced.

“Just leave us alone,” Will insisted. “She’s been in a car accident. She isn’t well.”

“She feels fine to me,” came the lazy, beer-loose voice. His hand palpated and pinched the breast. The cold, rather than his ministrations, was thickening her nipple. But Knifeman didn’t have the wit to understand. Will wanted to smack the curl from his lips, tear those sleazy, half-shut lids wide open. His blood rushed with the thought of violence.

“Do you dance?” asked Knifeman, stepping closer to Elisabeth. He licked his broad lips and they gleamed as though forged from metal. He pressed a denim-clad thigh into the dip where her own met. “You have a dancer’s body. I bet you move like nobody’s business.”

The head on top of the fleece started jerking with laughter. “Want to trade a dance with your wife for your girl?”

Will clenched his hand into a fist. “So she is here?”

“She is for the sake of my offer. Whether she is once your bitch shakes her arse for us might be a different matter.”

Something went wrong in Will’s mind. It was like the slow bend of a green stick deep within: nothing snapped, but he went dizzy for a second, the earth slanting away from him at an alarming angle. He heard himself say You fucking and then there was just a thrum of blood turning his ears hot. When conventional images were tucked into his eyes once more, he saw that his hand was badly gashed and Knifeman was out cold, his blade held loosely between his thumb and forefinger. Elisabeth scrabbled for the knife as the other men closed in. They faced each other uneasily. The women pulled shawls around their nakedness, the children ran into the shadows.

Very clearly, a cry, Sadie’s cry, went up into the freezing sky: “Don’t!”

“So,” Will said, trying to keep the edginess from his voice. “Where is she?”

The fires were burning down. Before long they would be dead, plunging the wasteland into complete darkness. Any advantage that the knife was giving them would be lost. Sadie shrieked again.

“What’s happening to her?” Elisabeth demanded, passing the knife to Will.

“We only wanted you to dance for us,” Fleece said. “Now look at what you’ve done. I think, after we’ve fucked your daughter, we’ll kill you and bury you in the cow shit in that field.”

Will, as if in slow motion, stepped forwards and slid the point of the knife almost nonchalantly into Fleece’s shoulder. He yelled to Elisabeth to run, and they did, Will dropping the weapon in his shock and panic. He followed her towards the caravans while shouts and curses raged behind them. Catching up, he grabbed Elisabeth’s hand.

“We’ll lose them in there somewhere. Try to be quiet and keep your head down. Just for a little while. Till I find Sadie.”

Towards the rear of the cluster of caravans, they found another scattering of spent fuel drums. They huddled among them, shivering. Sometimes the voices came close and then drifted away. Will couldn’t work out whether it was proximity or a trick of the wind. He held Elisabeth close to him, and after what felt like hours, the voices faded until they were rewarded with complete silence.

Will lifted his head above the rim of an oil drum. The caravans were little more than grainy pale blocks against the night. One or two windows pulsed with waxy, orange light. The camp was asleep.

“I should go,” Will whispered. “I should find Sadie. That fucking girl.”

Elisabeth’s eyes broadened under the skimpy moonlight. “I have to come with you,” she urged.